What Force Timeclock Login does for a user group

Force Timeclock Login is a setting on a VICIdial user group that refuses an agent entry to the dialer until they have clocked in on the timeclock. A user group is the grouping object that lets one switch apply to a whole team. With this on, the act of starting work and the act of recording that work become the same step.

What problem it solves

The Timeclock is VICIdial's built-in attendance ledger: agents clock in at the start of a shift and clock out at the end, and the system stores those times for payroll and reporting. The trouble is that, by default, clocking in is optional. An agent can skip it, log straight into the agent screen, take calls all day, and leave no clock record at all. That breaks payroll and wrecks any Schedule adherence numbers you try to pull later.

Force Timeclock Login closes that gap. When the setting is N, the default, agents can ignore the clock. When it is Y, the dialer login is gated behind a valid clock-in.

How the gate works

flowchart TD
  A[Agent opens agent screen] --> B{Force Timeclock Login}
  B -->|N default| E[Allow login]
  B -->|Y| C{Clocked in now}
  C -->|Yes| E
  C -->|No| D{Admin level 8 or 9 exempt}
  D -->|Yes| E
  D -->|No| F[Send to timeclock first]

Each Agent in the group hits this check before an Agent session can begin. No clock record means no dialer. The agent simply clocks in, then logs in as normal.

The admin exemption

Like several user group restrictions, this one carries an option to exempt admin users at levels 8 and 9. Leave the exemption on so a supervisor can drop into the agent screen to test a Campaign or cover a queue without being forced through the clock. Keep it off only if you genuinely want managers tracked the same way as agents.

The agent's experience is gentle, not punishing. If they try to log in without clocking in, they are simply pointed to the timeclock first. They clock in, then return to the agent screen and log in normally. There is no error to puzzle over and no manager intervention needed for the common case. That low friction is what makes the setting practical to leave on every day rather than something supervisors quietly disable.

Why bother enforcing it at all? Because attendance data that depends on people remembering to do an optional step is data you cannot trust. Once Force Timeclock Login is on, every working session has a matching clock-in by construction. Payroll exports line up with actual dialer activity, and the Schedule adherence view stops showing phantom gaps where someone worked but never clocked. For teams that bill clients by agent hours, that reliability is worth far more than the few seconds it adds to each agent's morning.

Note: Force Timeclock Login only checks that the agent is clocked in, not whether they are inside a scheduled shift. If you also want to fence the actual hours, pair it with Shift Enforcement on the same group. One records attendance, the other restricts the login window. Used together on the same User group, they cover both questions at once: did the agent record their time, and were they allowed to be on at this hour.

For the bigger picture of how these group switches stack together, read our users and groups multi-team guide. If you have not built the group yet, how to add a VICIdial user group covers creating one from scratch.

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